Anybody using dosemu? I want to run DOS WordPerfect 6.2, following the installation instructions provided here: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/linux.html Any tips configuring dosemu would be appreciated, particularly configuring the cdrom path. I have installed the Linux WP8.X on earlier SuSE distro’s, but these installations have some minor problems. The major problem is that XWP8.X’s printer no longer works with CUPS. (If anyone is interested, there are how-to’s available here: http://www.xwp8users.com/index.html )
I’ve never tried dosemu but I’ve run a few old games in Dosbox, extremely easy to use and configure
both are available in the main oss repo’s.
About the CD drive once it’s mounted you can pass it’s path like a regular folder it doesn’t really matter you can see it’s path in dolphin’s address bar, I haven’t used dosbox in a while but passing a folder or cd drive was very simple, printing is another mater I have no idea about that.
Thanks for the reply. The author of the installation procedure I cited warns against using DosBox for the exact reason you mentioned: extreme difficulty configuring printing. I have a copy of Sierra’s “Aces over Europe” I’d like to run, but I shudder at the prospect of getting an old game port joystick to work through a USB adapter. So it will be a later project. FWIW the Dosemu website mentions it was developed on earlier SuSE releases. The 64-bit version installs but the 32-bit SuSE RPM has a bug that won’t let it install.
I have installed FreeDOS in VirtualBox which may offer an alternative way forward.
I’ll have to research VirtualBox. It may be possible to install an old Linux - Libranet 3.0 Debian - that is 100% compatible with XWP8. Do you know of some good documentation and how-to’s for installing a Linux under VirtualBox?
I’ve been running dosemu for over 10 years, for the ACT contact manager (ver 2 for DOS). Before that I used dosbox, but it consumed CPU cycles all the time; dosemu goes quiet in the background.
I missed an early upgrade cycle to Windows and find I can’t take my 5000+ contacts elsewhere very easily. Because of peculiarities in ACT 2 and dosemu, I don’t have mouse access to ACT–no cut and paste, which can be a pain–and ACT can’t find where the CDROM is mounted. Not that I mind too much. ACT is very good from the keyboard (after 20 years of practice). Compared to running on an early IBM PC, ACT on a 2+ GHz processor really flies.
The combination of ACT and dosemu 1.4 needs a config change to make the printer work. In /etc/dosemu/dosemu.conf, remove the comment hash marks # from the two lines for printers LPT1 and LPT2.Install as the default printer one that’s compatible with HP LJ3, for example my HP2100. Redirect LPT to the default printer.
openSuse repositories have dosemu 1.4, which is no longer supported (but I still use). Ver 2 is out. Stas Sergeev (stsp@users.sf.net) maintains it and has a mailing list for support questions.
If dosemu 2 comes to openSuse I’ll try to install it with all the ACT features. It looks like getting the mouse and CD to work would require changes to config files and installation of a mouse driver from DOS. Some lazy summer afternoon when the beer is cold…